GPA? What’s that? And why does it matter?

When colleges look at your grades, you will usually be asking your school to submit your official, and entire, transcript (a list of all your classes and grades). While individual grades do matter, many colleges will publish information like average GPA of entering freshmen, to give you a sense of whether your general transcript/grades measure up.

Only your final semester grades matter. Your transcript won’t have details like how you did on that one project, or whether you bombed a quiz or even the final. They’ll only see your final semester grades for each course. (So two grades, one in the Fall, one in the Spring for a year-long course like U.S. History, and one grade for a one semester elective like P.E.)

Many colleges ask to see increasing level of rigor — and some will even ask that you really try and take higher level classes (honors, AP, advanced math) across as many subjects as possible.

If your GPA is unweighted/standard, then you get an 4.0 for every A, 3.0 for every B, 2.0 for every C and 1.0 for every D.

For more informational and details, please visit college board website: